


If You Love Someone, Set Them Free

by FlintMcC



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:14:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22340875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlintMcC/pseuds/FlintMcC
Summary: Abby Clark is back in L.A. Her return precipitates a crisis in Eddie and Buck’s relationship, especially for Eddie.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz
Comments: 28
Kudos: 286





	If You Love Someone, Set Them Free

Buck was unusually quiet for Movie Night. He loved classic Disney cartoons, and he loved introducing Christopher to them, but this night he was so quiet that even Christopher noticed. The little boy pushed his glasses up his nose and said, “Buck?”

“Yeah, Buddy?”

“Are you okay?”

Buck was quiet a moment. “Yeah, I’m fine, Buddy.” He ruffled Christopher’s hair.

Christopher didn’t believe him, but he said nothing. He looked up at his father. Eddie shook his head slightly. Christopher saw and nodded. He would ask no more questions.

When the movie was over, Christopher asked if Buck could tuck him in bed. Eddie glanced at Buck, who smiled and nodded. “Sure, son,” Eddie smiled at his son. Buck took Christopher by the hand and slowly led him down the hall to his bedroom. Meanwhile Eddie took the empty beer bottles, juice box, and popcorn bowl to the kitchen. He was waiting in the living room when Buck came back down the hallway.

“All tucked in,” Buck said, and he smiled a bit.

Eddie smiled at him. "So,” he asked, “are you ready for … bed?” Buck always stayed over when they had Movie Night at the Diaz residence.

“Uh, yeah, about that,” Buck replied. Nervously, he rubbed the back of his neck.”

“What?” Eddie asked.

Buck hesitated a bit before replying. “I, uh, I think I better sleep at my place tonight,” he said.

Eddie frowned. “Something wrong?”

Buck didn’t answer directly. Instead, he replied with a question of his own. “Eddie, this … thing … between us? It’s not just about sex, is it?”

“Buck!” Eddie was offended, but he kept his voice quiet because Christopher was just down the hall. He took hold of Buck by his upper arms. “What do you mean, ‘this thing’? How can you ask that? It’s not just a ‘thing.’ You know I love you, man.”

Buck sighed. For a moment, he looked away. Then he turned back to Eddie. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry I called it a ‘thing.’ I love you, too,” he said quietly, looking deeply into Eddie’s eyes.

Eddie was getting exasperated. He loosed his hold of Buck’s arms and stepped back. “Buck, what is going on? You weren’t yourself all evening, now you’re asking me if it’s just sex between us. What the hell is going on?” he repeated with emphasis.

Buck looked away again, as if he couldn’t face Eddie, but finally he turned back to him. “I heard from Abby again the day before yesterday.”

“So?” Eddie knew that from time to time Buck was exchanging e-mails with Abby Clark. Abby had begun the correspondence. Buck had replied, and he even let Eddie see their communications. The e-mails were always friendly and innocuous.

“She’s back in L.A.,” Buck said. “She phoned the day before yesterday. She’s finally giving up her apartment, and she’s going to stay with her brother while she figures out what she wants to do with her life.”

“She wants you to help her clean out the apartment?”

“No.” Buck hesitated, briefly looking at the floor before raising his eyes to Eddie. “She wants me to go away with her for a few days.”

“She what?” Eddie was stunned.

“She wants me to go away with her,” Buck repeated.

For a few long moments, Eddie said nothing while he processed this news. Abby Clark wanted Buck to go away with her? “Why?” he asked, stunned.

“I don’t know. She didn’t say. She just wants me to go up to Lake Arrowhead with her for a few days.”

“You’re going to do it, aren’t you?” Eddie said. He could read Buck like the proverbial book.

“Well, yeah, I have some extra leave time saved up. I worked it out with Bobby yesterday.”

“And you were going to tell me this when?”

Buck rubbed the back of his neck again. “Well, I was going to, yesterday, but we were so busy with calls I figured I’d better wait for tonight.”

“How long is ‘a few days’?”

“I … I … don’t know. Three, four maybe?”

Buck could see that this news was causing Eddie pain; it showed clearly in his eyes. He reached out a hand, but Eddie backed away. “Look, Eddie, Eddie, I, I need to do this.” In his anxiety he was stuttering. “I love you, Eddie, I know that, but I need, I need to know that everything with Abby is really, really over. I need to know that I don’t have feelings for her anymore.”

“You don’t know that now? After all the months we’ve been together? So you’re going away with her? For what? A couple of days of banging your ex so you know there’s nothing there anymore? Or having a woman again to see if you’re tired of being with another man?”

He and Buck had never discussed their sexuality, not after their first kiss, not after the first time they made love. Were they bi? Were they gay? What they were was two people who were deeply in love who just happened to be two guys. Everyone they knew, friends, family, the team at the 118, knew about them and loved them and didn’t care they were in a male-male relationship. Categories didn’t matter. But if Buck wanted to get back with Abby Clark, maybe they did matter? And so Eddie wondered, and feared: Was Buck tired of being with another guy? Did he want to go back to being with women? Did he want to go back to Abby Clark?

“Eddie! No! It’s not like that! Please! I love you! I know I do. It’s not about the sex. But I really need to do this!” There was a pleading tone to Buck’s voice. He reached out again, but Eddie stayed out of his grasp.

Eddie looked at the floor for a long while, his lips pursed, saying nothing while Buck watched him closely. He could feel himself getting angrier and angrier. How could Buck do this to him, to them? To go off with Abby like that? Of course they were going to have sex, but what if there was more? What if Buck decided he was still in love with Abby and wanted to get back with her?

Unexpectedly, on the heels of that frightening thought, Eddie suddenly remembered something he had heard, or read, somewhere a long time ago. He exhaled forcefully. He murmured, “’If you love someone, set them free. If they come back, they’re yours. If they don’t, they never were.’” As scared and angry as he might be, he certainly loved Buck. He would have to set him free. He would have to let him go do this thing with Abby Clark, regardless of what the outcome might be.

“What?” Buck said.

“Nothing,” Eddie replied. “Just something I heard somewhere.” He was quiet again. He sighed. “Alright,” he said. “Go do what you need to do. Have your ‘few days’ with Abby. You know where to find me if you decide to come back.”

“ _If_?” Buck answered. That _if_ hurt. “What do you mean, _if_? Eddie I’ll. …”

Eddie interrupted him. “Just go, okay?” he said shortly.

Buck said nothing for a moment. Then he quietly said, “Okay. Good night.”

“Good night,” Eddie replied. Buck turned and left, quietly closing the door behind him. There was no hug, no good-night kiss.

For some minutes after Buck was gone, Eddie stood leaning against the door. There was a pain, a tightness under his breastbone. He hated to admit it to himself, but he was scared, scared at the possibility of losing Buck. He hung his head. He loved Buck. Together, Buck and Christopher were his entire world. He knew Buck had been in love with Abby, and she had left him. What if he discovered that he was still in love with her? What if she was still in love with him? Was Eddie going to lose him? Shannon had left him, Eddie thought. Now, was Buck going to leave him, too? When the sobbing began he bit his lip till he tasted blood to keep himself quiet. He didn’t want to alarm Christopher.

And speaking of Christopher, what the hell was he going to tell that little boy who was asleep in his room just down the hall?

*-*-*

The next three days were hell for Eddie.

Work was difficult. He really didn’t feel like being around anyone any more than was necessary to get the job done. He missed Buck terribly and was afraid what might happen when—and if—he returned. He kept to himself, even at meals. Everybody at the 118 knew something was, wrong, but nobody said anything. The look on Eddie’s face plainly said that he didn’t want to talk about whatever was going on. Bobby told the crew that Buck would be away for a few days, but that was all he told them.

“What’s going on?” Hen quietly asked Chim after two days of Eddie hardly saying two words together. “Did he and Buck have a fight?”

“I don’t know,” Chim replied just as quietly. “Maddie hasn’t said anything. If they did, she’d know about it.” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen Eddie so quiet. I don’t like it.”

“Me, neither,” said Hen.

And if work was difficult, somehow home seemed worse. He had to force himself to keep up a cheerful façade for Christopher’s sake so as not to upset and worry his son. When Christopher asked where Buck was, which he did several times, he assured the little boy that Buck just had to go away for a little while, but he would be back soon. He wished he could feel certain it was true.

Three nights after Buck left, Eddie was sitting on the living room couch, staring morosely at the late newscast; Christopher had already been asleep for a couple of hours. His attention was drawn away from the TV by a knock on the door so soft that he could barely hear it. Frowning, he got up to answer the knock. Who the hell would come knocking at this late hour? He opened the door and found himself face to face with Buck.

For some moments, neither said anything. Finally, Buck said quietly, “Can I come in?” Eddie stood aside and allowed him to enter, closing the door behind him, but not saying anything. Then he turned to Buck.

“Well?” he said.

Buck swallowed. “It’s over, Eddie,” he said, and Eddie felt his heart sink. He felt a lump in his throat. He knew it. …

Buck went on. “It’s over. Between Abby and me. It's over," he said firmly.

“What?” Eddie exclaimed. His eyes widened. That wasn’t what he was expecting to hear.

“It’s over. My feelings for her? She’s a good friend, now. I loved her, man, and I’ll always be grateful for what she did for me. She made me a better man, a better human being, but that’s all I feel anymore, friendship and gratitude. It’s you I want to be with.”

“Did you have sex with her?” Eddie couldn’t help asking.

Buck looked a little sheepish. He glanced away for a moment before he turned back to Eddie. “Mostly, she just wanted to talk about how our lives have gone in different ways since she left L.A., but, yeah,” he admitted. “We tried to have sex, but it didn’t work.”

He went on, “The whole time, all I could think about was being with you, how it feels being with you. Your, your strength, the warmth of your body, how it feels when we hold each other, how your skin feels against mine, even how your hair smells when you’ve just had a shower, just, just everything about you.” Momentarily he sounded a bit choked up.

Swallowing the lump that had formed in his throat, he laughed a little, quietly, ruefully. “We tried to have sex, and me? Old ‘Firehose,’ himself? I ended up sleeping on the couch.” He shook his head. “I know now for sure. Abby is completely in the past. It’s you I want to be with, and nobody else. I fucked up, doing this thing, going away with her, and I am really, really sorry.”

Eddie stood looking at him sternly, arms folded across his chest, while Buck gave him that pleading, puppy-dog look that Eddie knew well, begging forgiveness with his eyes. Eddie let him wait a moment or two. As relieved as he felt, he was still annoyed at Buck for what he had put him through for the past three days, but then he shook his head, gave a brief little chuckle, and said quietly, “Come here, _mi amor._ ” He opened his arms, and Buck flew into them. Eddie slipped one arm around Buck’s waist. He put his other hand on the back of Buck’s head and brought Buck’s lips to his. _“Querido,”_ Eddie murmured as their lips touched.

As the kiss deepened, Buck growled deep in his throat while Eddie insinuated his tongue between Buck’s lips. He put an arm around Eddie’s shoulders and bent him back slightly to improve the angle of the kiss. He forced his own tongue into Eddie’s mouth. For moments their tongues seemed to duel for supremacy of the kiss. Buck shivered when Eddie lightly bit his lower lip.

When their lips finally separated, Buck rubbed his cheek against Eddie’s scruff, eyes closed, mouth open, knowing for a certainty that this was where he belonged: in Eddie Diaz’s arms and no place else. “God, I love you, man,” He murmured.

_“Te quiero mucho, mi amor,”_ Eddie whispered, his lips against Buck’s throat. His heart soared. Buck wasn’t leaving. Buck wasn’t going back to Abby, he wasn’t going back to women. He wasn’t losing him. He nibbled Buck’s earlobe, and Buck gasped. He rested his head on Buck’s shoulder. He said quietly, “I let you go, and you came back to me, so you really are mine.”

“What was that?” Buck pulled back and looked at him, brow slightly furrowed.

Eddie smiled. “Just an old saying I heard somewhere.” He took hold of the lapels of Buck’s jean jacket. He quoted. “’If you love someone, set them free. If they come back, they’re yours. If they don’t, they never were.’” He added, “I let you go to do what you needed to do, and you came back to me, so you’re mine.”

“So I’m yours?” Buck cocked his head and smirked a bit.

“Yes, you are, _querido._ ”

Buck grinned at him. “Okay, on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“That you’re mine, too.” Buck whispered. He pulled Eddie close and ground his crotch against Eddie’s crotch. Eddie grabbed Buck’s ass and ground back.

“And nobody else’s,” Eddie whispered back, bringing his lips to Buck’s.

Again they came together in another deep kiss, but this time they were interrupted by a small but imperious voice coming down the hall. “B-u-u-u-ck!” They had been quiet, but apparently Christopher had sharp ears. He knew Buck’s voice when he heard it.

Eddie fell back, laughing quietly. “Looks like you’re somebody else’s, too.”

“I guess so,” Buck grinned. He looked over his shoulder, down the hallway. “Be right there, Chris!” He turned back to Eddie. He gave Eddie a quick kiss.“I better go.”

“Go!” Smiling and laughing, Eddie gave him a little push in the direction of Christopher’s room. He stood back, arms folded across his chest, grinning widely as he watch Buck hurry down the hallway. Just as he was about to enter Christopher’s room, Buck turned and flashed Eddie a wide smile. Eddie smiled back. He said to himself, “’If you love someone, set them free. If they come back, they’re yours.’” Buck had come back. He was sure now. Buck was his. And he was Buck’s.

**Author's Note:**

> I trusted Google Translate for the Spanish. I hope it's correct.


End file.
